How To Avoid Doing Good Work

Every one of us wants to do good work.

We want to know that our work is not just accepted, but respected, appreciated, and impactful. Whether working on a brand-side team or as a service provider partner, we want to leave our stakeholders wowed and wanting more.

Here’s the rub: “good work” doesn’t ignite excitement or movement. What we really want to do is fuel good decisions that drive positive changes in our organizations or those we serve.

Doing Good Work

Instructions followed
Sound methodology
Strong documentation
Useful results report
Consideration of implications

Driving Positive Change

Deep questions about business issues
Creative problem solving
Multiple data sources or angles
“So what?” and “Now what?” guidance
Activation that drives results

On Driving Positive Change

“Good work” can be carried out, all the boxes can be checked, a bow can be tied around it, and the business can be left feeling flat and underwhelmed. That’s a terrible scenario. Going beyond good work to deliver work that makes a meaningful difference and drives positive results requires teammates and partners with a deep understanding and consideration of the business, its needs, the competitive landscape, and the future potential of the category.

Positive change is typically driven by a multi-faceted effort:

Discovery or confirmation of market needs
Creative problem solving
Cross-functional collaboration to act on what we learn through this process

Research and data analytics are key ingredients for discovery and in building a foundation for positive change. This is how we answer business questions with certainty and help drive the positive outcomes brands are looking for.

Some Example Business Questions

Here are a couple of examples of the differences between answering questions with good work and work that more effectively drives positive change.

Question: How do we find new customer groups so we can expand our market share?

Do good work: conduct a segmentation survey to identify the various types of customers in the market. Identify several segments across the market and collaborate to identify the ones most closely aligned with the business needs. Build a story-driven report to describe each segment and the market potential it represents. Share this story with the team, answer their questions, and provide additional support as needed.
Drive positive change: expand the scope of your segmentation work to formally include internal stakeholders on the front end and back end. Engage in exploratory consumer interviews or ethnography as an early step to uncover pain points or unmet needs, identify workarounds, and to learn your consumers’ language as they discuss the category. Then conduct a richer and more targeted segmentation survey based on all you’ve learned in the first couple of steps; consider enhancing the survey learning with behavioral data or other secondary data. Follow this step with dedicated persona development research and finally an activation workshop with all key team members. This process broadens the possibilities. It also brings stakeholders along for the ride (establishing early buy-in), gets them involved in identifying and creating solutions, and gives every member of the team “move-forward” plans and tasks of their own. A major collaborative effort like this is not only very informative, but it also creates ownership across the organization and inspires positive change with clear direction.

Question: Which new product will produce the best results?

Do good work: conduct a concept test to evaluate a few static scenarios. Each one will represent different product features and benefits, along with a proposed retail price. Do a survey and report that xx% of consumers are likely to purchase Concept A and the reasons for that outcome. The internal team will have a sense for Concept A’s costs as scoped and the profit margin that would likely result.
Drive positive change: go beyond the basics for an optimized product offer. Build an extensive list of possible features, benefits, and retail prices. Then conduct a Choice Modeling (conjoint) survey that presents all possible combinations across a set of target-audience shoppers or decision makers. Doing this in a competitive context allows survey participants to make choices that reflect real-world buying decisions. This work will result in a simulation tool to generate “what if?” scenarios and recommendations for an optimized product that will 1) drive the strongest consumer interest in your product over competitors’, 2) provide the greatest revenue for the brand, and/or 3) generate the most margin for the bottom line. As the business consultant (whether internal or external), you’re then ready to recommend the scenario that addresses the key business need and to work with the brand team to identify the metrics they wish to impact. Is this new product an awareness- and brand-building move? Is it a share-enhancing product introduction? Is its primary purpose to drive cash to the bottom line? Understand the desired business outcome, ladder the options up to the total addressable market, compute the numbers, make your recommendation, and work with the team to ensure they are ready to execute.

In Summary

If you work on a corporate or brand team, look for an agency who will partner with you in the ways outlined above. If you work as an agency consultant or client partner, be sure you’re thinking and working in these ways to help drive positive results for your clients. Going the extra mile to consult with the internal or external client team leads to stronger business outcomes. This requires asking tough questions, thinking critically about the business climate and trajectory, understanding supply challenges or other operational issues, deeply understanding the consumer or customer base, and a willingness to lead the team on a journey of discovery, decision-making, and activation planning.

Now I leave you with this question: do you really want to do good work?

Author

Felicia Rogers

Corporate Executive Vice President

Email Felicia

Felicia serves as a strategic advisor to clients and internal teams and works closely with our research teams to address clients’ tough business questions and challenges. During her career, Felicia has partnered with companies across an array of categories. She enjoys supporting clients in their efforts to build strong brands, accelerate new product development, and optimize the customer experience. Felicia began her career in advertising and has since spent most of her professional life in various research and insights roles at Decision Analyst.

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